Abstract

Explores parallels between the misery of slavery & poverty in the era of primitive capitalist accumulation in the Middle Ages & at present. Examples such as the selling of organs, working conditions of women in the Third World, prostitution, & environmental degradation are discussed as indicators of the present high levels of misery. It is suggested that these considerations lead to one fundamental thesis: capitalist development has always been unsustainable because of its human impact. This contradiction is felt particularly strongly by women, who are in the position of the unwaged worker in a wage economy & therefore denied an autonomous existence. Falling birth rates in the advanced industrialized countries are taken as a rejection of conditions produced by capitalism. It is argued that the repressed knowledges of women & indigenous populations should find a way of emerging & being heard. D. M. Smith